Hebe News – Article 1
FAREWELL HEBE ‘UNITED REFORM RED’ AND WELCOME HEBE ‘JANE HOLDEN’!
Some 5 or 6 years ago, having admired the plant for some time, I plucked up the courage to sneak a cutting from a tall, fairly erect, large-leaf hebe with deep pink flowers, which was growing in a bed outside the United Reformed Church in central Farnham. I was sure that such an impressive hybrid must have been named and described somewhere in the hebe literature, but I was unable to find anything which came close to matching this plant’s key characteristics. The lady who looked after the churchyard plants, despite being a knowledgeable gardener, was unable to throw any light on the matter, and explained that the man who had supplied and planted this beautiful hebe, and might well have known its name, had died some time previously.
Subsequently, I propagated plants from the original cutting and sold them at the Loseley show under the temporary name of Hebe ‘United Reform Red’. This was after we found one year that visitors to our stand were demanding to know where they could buy this hebe, having been bowled over by the very long (often 25 cm, 10 in, or longer) deep pink flowers, which Ginny had incorporated in the cut flower arrangement forming the central feature of our stand. See colour insert.
Over the years, I got no further in my quest for identification, despite pestering just about everyone I knew who might have been able to help. The closest I got was when Tony Hayter sent me a photo which he had taken of an unknown hebe in a garden in Somerset, which appeared to be very similar to my mystery plant. The owner had said that when she had bought this pink-flowered hebe, she had been told that it had been given an RHS Award of Garden Merit. However, a search through the list of RHS AGM recipients did not provide any clues as to its true identity.
The matter then remained in limbo, until in September 2009; I visited Bob Priddle at Twyn yr Hydd House, primarily in connection with discussing arrangements for the 2010 Spring Meeting/AGM, but also to see how his hebe collection was developing. During a tour of the garden, I was overjoyed to find that one of the beds contained a plant which seemed to be exactly the same as my Hebe ‘United Reform Red’, and which was named Hebe ‘Jane Holden’. Bob had purchased this plant from Lynash Nursery to supplement those which I had donated the previous year to kick-start the collection. After that, I looked up the photo of Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ on the Lynash website which showed that the flowers were a deep rosy pink (as on my plant) and not pinky-purple as described by Douglas Chalk in his book Hebes and Parahebes (the only semi-detailed original description of this cultivar I have been able to find). Nor were they the lilac-purple colour as shown in the photo of ‘Jane Holden’ on the Hebe Society Website. No wonder I had previously been unable to identify my plant!
Later discussions with Tony Hayter led to him contacting Neil Bell to see if he had any photos, since Neil had been evaluating Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ in the Oregon hardiness trials for some years. Sure enough, Neil sent a photo which clearly showed pink flowers and the growth habit and some (but not all) of the other key characteristics of my plant. He also commented with regard to hardiness that "Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ has proven to be far tougher than its leaf size would suggest. It might be the best pink-flowered shrub in the whole evaluation." Neil’s plant arose from cuttings taken from a plant at the University of British Columbia Botanic Garden. Tony then contacted Brent Hine at UBC Botanic Garden, who said that his plant had been purchased from Blackthorn Nursery in 1998, but had recently died after winter frosts down to -10°C.
So, at long last, it looked as though I could be 99% certain of the true identity of my Hebe ‘United Reform Red’. However, I was still a little apprehensive of making a definite identification because my plants had two quite distinct characteristics, neither of which was clearly brought out in the photos of Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ which I had seen, nor was mentioned in Douglas Chalk’s description. These were the distinctly purple colour of the leaf bud and the particularly long inflorescence. Clearly, what I needed to do to resolve this remaining uncertainty was to compare my plant in the flesh with an example of Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ whose correct identification was beyond question.
With this in mind, I thought I would follow up the connection with Blackthorn Nursery and, on Googling’ the name, was pleasantly surprised to find that it was located at Kilmeston, near Alresford, Hants, which is only some 20 miles from my home in Farnham. On phoning to see whether the nursery still sold Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ and could give me any information on its origins, I then experienced one of those rare and magic moments, when everything came together in a rush. The source of my enlightenment was Mrs Sue White, who it turned out was the daughter of the eponymous Jane Holden. At our subsequent meeting, I learned from Sue that the original plant had arisen in the mid-1970s as a chance seedling in her mother’s garden at Farm Cottage, Idleigh, near Meopham in Kent (not in Devon or Cornwall as reported elsewhere), possibly as a hybrid between Hebe ‘Great Orme’ and Hebe ‘Midsummer Beauty’. Sue’s husband, Robin White, considered it worth propagating and, having named it after his mother-in-law, started distributing it in the late-1970s or early-1980s from Landford Lodge Nurseries, Landford, Nr Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Although Blackthorn Nursery no longer propagates hebes for sale, Sue kindly gave me a beautiful example of Hebe ‘Jane Holden’ in a 10 litre pot, which is an offspring of her mother’s original plant. Comparison with my own plants has shown that they are, in all respects, undoubtedly from the same parent.
So, at last, my mystery hebe has been identified beyond doubt and Hebe ‘United Reform Red’ is no longer. Welcome to Hebe ‘Jane Holden’; a pink-flowered hybrid, whose qualities are definitely worthy of much wider attention than has been the case up to now.
Gordon Smith
Registered Charity No 801398
